July 19, 2014

In case you missed RSCON5, an incredible Online Conference for Educators worldwide, and the many interesting sessions presented, this is my tiny contribution to this great event.

It's amazing how many people got together during 3 days in July to dedicate some of their time to professional development. Apart from congratulating the different presenters who shared their knowledge with us, I'd like to express my admiration to the organizing committee who put everything together.

For my presentation, I decided to talk about Text Genres and its digital possibilities.

Although many of the course books some of us use in class suggest writing activities such as formal and informal letters, descriptions, narratives and e-mails, other text genres should receive our attention too. I believe the internet has redefined the way we communicate with others and the kind of texts we write. When we travel we no longer send postcards home but we share our photos a comments instantly via Instagram. When we need to send urgent messages, we don't even think of telegrams anymore, we use text messages. Technology has introduced us to different types of text writing and with them other challenges too, such as the use of abbreviations and the limit of characters as in Twitter.

This is a screenshot of the session I presented at RSCON5. If you click on the image, you'll be taken to the recordings. You can watch the whole session at the Collaborate Platform, listen to the audio or watch the video recording. http://goo.gl/iUShpP

All the resources mentioned throughout the talk can be found at the livebinders below:

WELCOME!

I'm Ana Maria Menezes. An EFL teacher, teacher developer and online moderator. An enthusiastic blogger and curious researcher. M.A. in Linguistic Studies with special interest in teacher development in online environments.